Sometimes, you take a good picture, but there are enough errors to prevent it from being a great picture! This is an example of this.
This image is good, but not great. As you can see, the sharpness isn't quite there and some of the leaf parts are blurred - then there's that unsightly speck below the ladybug.
So, it was time to play. After cropping out the unsightly and blurry bits, we were still left with the unsharpness of the photo, so applying artistic filters and playing a bit, it becomes an attractive image.
I don't have the in-between stages of this image - I didn't know I would be blogging it later!
I use Photoscape (free!) for most of my edits - it's easier to use than PhotoShop or GIMP, so it's my go-to for most things.
As I look at this image, I think I used the texture line-diagonal, then reversed the image and repeated. I reversed it again and then headed over to GIMP where I did the frosted-window texture on the surround, then back to Photoscape for the margin border.
This next edit, I have to think about how I'd do it again because I don't even have the original anymore unless it's sitting on a machine I cannot currently access... (Though I did try to grab images off it first... so it might be sitting somewhere...) Anyway. This one, I'm pretty sure that all I did was use Photoshop CSS (which I got when it was free for a time) to paint around the borders, then used the blur tool to swirl the colors a bit until I was happy with it.
(image available at CafePress and RedBubble)
The last one is a similar edit - again, I don't currently have the original, so I had to use my CafePress site to source this. I am sure that before I took it over to Photoshop CSS, I gave it a harsher fresco filter to bring out the natural dark tones more. Then, painting on a border and swirling it with the blur tool again.
(image available at CafePress and RedBubble)
Looking at this picture, I'm thinking that it might be time to do a new edit... and this time, I will take you through all the steps I do... What do you think?
If you haven't already, please check out my other photo posts from the past few days:
https://steemit.com/macrophotography/@viking-ventures/primrose-hyacinth-medley-a-floral-portrait
https://steemit.com/macrophotography/@viking-ventures/walnut-blossoms-a-floral-portrait
https://steemit.com/macrophotography/@viking-ventures/walnut-intimacy-a-floral-portrait
https://steemit.com/macrophotography/@viking-ventures/walnut-majesty-a-floral-portrait
https://steemit.com/macrophotography/@viking-ventures/walnut-spring-a-floral-portrait
Lori Aberle Hopkins – photographer at Viking Visual, author, student-of-the-world.
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Check out my work at: RedBubble, ImageKind, and CafePress.
Camera has changed from time to time, the photographer has not. :-)
Unless otherwise stated, all photos are original to me and © 2008-2018.
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